Manila: A member of an Al Qaida-linked terror group in Southeast Asia and 50 policemen were killed in clashes in the southern Philippines, officials said on Monday.
The militant was identified as Zulkifli Bin Hir, aka Marwan, a member of Jemaah Islamiya who trained local terror groups to make bombs in southern Philippines since 2002.
The incident prompted lawmakers to stop hearings — related to the passage of a bill that will implement a political settlement between the Philippine government and a major Filipino-Muslim rebel group — on Monday, sources said.
“Malaysian bomb expert Zulkifli bin Hair, also known as Marwan, was killed when members of the Philippine National Police Special Action Force (PNP SAF) entered the lair of the Bangsamoro Islamic Freedom Fighter (BIFF), the armed wing of the Bangsamoro Islamic Freedom Movement (BILF) in Mamasapano town, Maguindanao on Sunday, near a territory also controlled by the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) that forged a pro-autonomy peace settlement with the Philippines government in early 2014,” a source from the defence department who requested for anonymity told Gulf News.
Defence Secretary Voltaire Gazmin also confirmed Zulkifli’s death when he and local government secretary Mar Roxas and PNP officer-in-charge Deputy Director General Leonardo Espina flew to Maguindanao and Cotabato on Monday.
Marwan was a member of the Jemaah Islamiya, the Southeast Asian conduit of the Al Qaida. With assistance from the Abu Sayyaf Group, Marwan went into hiding in the south, after his alleged involvement in the twin bombings that killed 202 in Bali, Indonesia in 2002.
An earlier report sent by SAF director Chief Superintendent Getulio Napes Jr to Manila late Sunday claimed that Zulkifli was neutralised during by the SAF in Tukanalipao village, Mamasapano at 2:30 Sunday morning.
But the SAF men could not retrieve Zulkifli’s body because of the volley of fire coming from various rebel groups that were engaged in the 12-hour clashes, said Napes.
“Initial police reports also said there was another warrant of arrest for Basit Usman, a Filipino leader of the Abu Sayyaf Group which has links with the Al Qaida, but Basit managed to escape,” said Gazmin.
Basit is a bomb expert trained y Zulkifli, intelligence reports said.
“Various armed groups were engaged in the clash,” explained Miriam Coronel-Ferrer, the chief negotiator of the Philippine government during talks with the MILF (that began in 1997 and ended in 2014).
Giving details of what happened, Gazmin said the PNP-SAF did not coordinate with the Armed Forces of the Philippines when it began its operation to serve arrest warrants for Zulkifli and Basit. As a result, the military failed to coordinate with MILF members in the area where the warrants of arrest were to be served.”
The SAF members also clashed with MILF fighters, said Mohagher Iqbal, chief negotiator of the MILF during peace negotiations.
When that happened, members of the BIFF, the armed wing of the BIFM, defended the MILF fighters, said Iqbal. The BIFM became a renegade member of the MILF in 2008.
The number of people killed has risen to 50 apart from two civilians who were caught in the cross fire, said Senior Superintendent Noel Armilla, PNP regional director in the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (ARMM).
To resolve the situation, Coronel-Ferrer said, “All efforts are being exerted to retrieve the casualties and provide safe passage to other (members) of the SAF who remained in the affected areas. Members of the International Monitoring Team; the respective ceasefire committees of the Philippine government and the MILF, the military and the regional police started working closely in these efforts.”
The government and MILF peace panels also began informal talks to prevent the continuation of such incidents, Coronel-Ferrer said.
When he suspended senate hearings related to the passage of a law to implement the Philippine government and MILF peace settlement, Senator Ferdinand “Bongbong” Marcos said, “A peace settlement cannot be legislated under the threat of such extreme violence.”
The police officers who were to serve warrants of arrest for two terrorists “were not carrying loads of ammunition,” said Marcos, adding, “I condemn the use of violence by the MILF. They signed a peace agreement with the government, and therefore, the MILF is already a partner of government.”
